New UCSF report: Smokeless Tobacco in Sport and Use Among Adolescents

My colleagues Ben Chaffe, Chaffee, Elizabeth Couch, and Margaret Walsh just released a report, Smokeless Tobacco in Sport and Use Among Adolescents, that provides a current summary of the evidence on sports as promotional venues for smokeless tobacco use.  This report is particularly timely given debates around the state on whether cities and the state should prohibit smokeless tobacco use in baseball stadiums.
 
Here is a summary of the main points:
 
• Smokeless tobacco use substantially increases the risk of oral and pancreatic cancer, gum disease, nicotine addiction, and initiation of cigarette smoking among adolescents.

• Nearly 15% of U.S. high school males currently use smokeless tobacco, and use prevalence is higher among high school students who participate in organized sports than among non-athlete peers.

• There is little evidence that smokeless tobacco improves athletic performance, yet use among participants in certain sports and athletic events, such as ice hockey, baseball, wresting, and rodeo, far exceed levels observed in the general population.

• Modeling of smokeless tobacco use by family, friends, respected coaches, and elite athletes is strongly associated with smokeless tobacco initiation among adolescent males.

• Competitive organized baseball, including professional leagues, exhibits exceptionally high levels of smokeless tobacco use among its players.

• On-camera use at the major league level is broadcast to millions of viewers: an implicit product endorsement to children and adolescents.

• An environmental context that embraces smokeless tobacco as normative within athletic culture stimulates greater smokeless tobacco initiation and continued use on the part of young male athletes.
 
The full report is available here.